| At A Glance | |
| Author | Nikki |
| Contact | Nikki@bme.anon |
| IAM | VibrantHeart |
| When | A week ago |
| Artist | Georgia |
| Studio | Divine |
| Location | Saskatoon, SK |
This summer, I flew out to Saskatoon to stay with my best friend, Emily. We decided that while together, we should get something pierced. Being only 2 weeks away from my 18th birthday, I thought "why the hell not? I'll get my conch pierced!" So it was decided. On my first day with her, we headed over to Divine, and met the piercer, Georgia. Emily was getting some jewelry changed, so I decided to ask her if she'd pierced my conch with a 10 gauge barbell. She said yes, without hesitation, but then asked my age. I was disappointed to find out that at Divine, you have to be 18 to get pierced. I sighed, and said "oh damn. Only 12 more days!" Georgia knew I was from out of town, and that Emily and I were best friends so she said that because I was almost 18, she'd let it slide.
The next day, Emily called Divine and set up our appointments. Emily decided on a 16g rook piercing. 4:00 came very slowly, and Emily's mom drove us to get pierced. Emily, being 17 as well, needed her mom to sign. We get there, both extremely anxious to get pierced. We filled out forms, showed ID and headed to the piercing room. We decided that Emily would get pierced first. Hers went pretty smoothly, almost no pain, no blood, and it looked amazing, with a small curved barbell.
I was actually pretty nervous at this point. And to be perfectly honest, I was quite scared of how much it would hurt. I always knew that a conch piercing would hurt, so I figured "screw it. If I'm gonna do it, I might as well go big while I'm at it." And out came the huge 8 gauge needle. I sat on the piercing bed watching Georgia prepare, nervous as hell. She must have changed her gloves 5 times, which was very comforting. I tried to mentally prepare myself, as I usually do before a piercing, and like usual, I got very quiet. I hardly ever talk prior to a piercing. Georgia took a couple minutes to clean out my ear with iodine, and then marked it. I okayed it in the mirror and was told to lie down.
There was definitely no backing out now. It wasn't until this point that I actually realized I would have this huge freaking needle shoved through a thick piece of cartilage in my ear. Georgia positioned the needle, and I felt it poke my ear a few times. She finally found a good position and had me breathe in slowly. On my exhale, she pierced. Halfway through my exhale, I pretty much just stopped breathing and made a scrunchy "ow-that-really-kinda-hurts" face. I finally caught my breath, and was breathing pretty heavily. Georgia said to me "how did that feel?" To which I replied with only "FUCK!!!!" Both Emily and Georgia got a laugh out of that. I won't lie; it hurt like a son of a bitch. More so than most of my piercings, including my septum.
Georgia then removed the needle, and followed with a 10g internally threaded barbell. She started cleaning up her tray, while I attempted to not focus on the pain. She had her back to me, and all of a sudden, Emily points and goes "it's dripping!" I touch my neck, and there's blood on my hand. Now, before the piercing, I was talking about how my piercings pretty much never bleed. I'd never had one that bled before, so this came as quite a shock to me. Georgia began cleaning it up, and apparently, my ear suddenly filled with blood. It was flowing into my hair, onto my shirt. It was literally everywhere! I couldn't believe it! An entire tray full of bloody Kleenex, and 10 minutes later, the bleeding had finally stopped. It was pretty much gushing the whole time. Georgia kept saying "oh my god, why won't you clot?" She was totally shocked at the amount of blood, as was I. I was shaking pretty bad for the entire time, too.
I was finally allowed to sit up, and immediately I felt very light-headed and kind of dizzy. It took a few minutes for me to stop shaking, but I still felt the adrenaline rush from the whole thing. It might have been the loss of blood too that caused it.. haha. I walked out of the studio with a bunch of gauze in my hand and sterile wipes that Georgia had given me, and holding a large wad of Kleenex against the back of my ear. Emily's mom must have thought we'd died because we were in there for so long. I showed her my bloody ear and she cringed away.
Fast forward about 2 hours. I'm sitting at Emily's house and I had just finished eating supper. My conch was hurting pretty bad still. All of a sudden, I just touch my neck, and my hand has blood all over it. "Oh shit, here we go again," I thought. I told Emily, who then rushed out of the room and came back with a box of Kleenex. After about 10 or so minutes, the blood was still flowing from my ear, so I told Emily to call Divine. We only had half an hour to get there before they closed, and Emily's mom had gone to the store. So Emily called her, and she was on her way back. She ended up driving us back to Divine, and we had made it just in time. My ear had almost stopped bleeding. Georgia took a look at it, and decided to just put a bandage over my ear. She put some gauze over the piercing, on the back of my ear, and taped it on. It was actually pretty amusing, but I didn't really want to go out in public, haha. I left the bandage on for the rest of the night, and took it off the next day. My piercing was covered in dried blood. I didn't get pictures during the procedure, but I did when my ear was still bloody. They are located at the bottom of the page.
It's been about 2 weeks since I got the piercing now, and it is on its way to healing. There hasn't been another blood bath either. It gets a fair amount of crusties, which is hard to resist picking off. I just clean it with sea salt water, and it's fine. A couple days ago though, my stepsister didn't know about it, and decided to put me in a headlock, and totally smushed my ear. I've bumped it a few other times, which is really painful. Other than that, healing it has been fairly easy. It doesn't hurt quite as much anymore. Pain wise, on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say it was about a 14. I would totally do it again though!
And for anyone in the Saskatoon area, I highly recommend Divine. Georgia was absolutely amazing. If I lived there, she would definitely be my new piercer. Even Emily, who normally doesn't like female piercers, loved Georgia.
Pictures:
About half an hour old:
A couple hours old:
One week old:
And this is me with a sexy bandage over my ear:
